lion is the lowest value of the goods sent to
Europe for which no satisfaction is made.[4]

[Sidenote: Remittances from Bengal to China and the Presidencies.]

About an hundred thousand pounds a year is also remitted from Bengal, on
the Company's account, to China; and the whole of the product of that
money flows into the direct trade from China to Europe. Besides this,
Bengal sends a regular supply in time of peace to those Presidencies
which are unequal to their own establishment. To Bombay the remittance
in money, bills, or goods, for none of which there is a return, amounts
to one hundred and sixty thousand pounds a year at a medium.

[Sidenote: Exports from England to India.]

The goods which are exported from Europe to India consist chiefly of
military and naval stores, of clothing for troops, and of other objects
for the consumption of the Europeans residing there; and, excepting some
lead, copper utensils and sheet copper, woollen cloth, and other
commodities of little comparative value, no sort of merchandise is sent
from England that is in demand for the wants or desires of the native
inhabitants.

[Sidenote: Bad effects of investment.]

When an account is taken of the intercourse (for it is not commerce)
which is carried on between Bengal and England, the pernicious effects
of the system of investment from revenue will appear in the strongest
point of view. In that view, the whole exported produce of the country,
so far as the Company is concerned, is not exchanged in the course of
barter, but is taken away without any return or payment whatsoever. In a
commercial light, therefore, England becomes annually bankrupt to Bengal
to the amount nearly of its whole dealing; or rather, the country has
suffered what is tantamount to an annual plunder of its manufactures and
its produce to the value of twelve hundred thousand pounds.

[Sidenote: Foreign companies.]

[Sidenote: Consequences of their trade.]

In time of peace, three foreign companies appear at first sight to bring
their contribution of trade to the supply of this continual drain. These
are the companies of France, Holland, and Denmark. But when the object
is considered more nearly, instead of relief, these companies, who from
their want of authority in the country might seem to trade upon a
principle merely commercial, will be found to add their full proportion
to the calamity brought upon Bengal by the destructive system of the
ruling power; b